Why we love the Dodgers

With apologies to Mr. Scully, in a year that been so difficult, an amazing thing has happened.

The last 24 hours are the ultimate reminder of why we love the Dodgers.

It started around 4 p.m. yesterday when we first touched base with Vin Scully about how he planned to let the masses know he was coming back for 2012. Of course, that’s not the sort of secret that stays quiet for very long and you always worry that it’s going to leak out on its own. But sure enough, it stayed quiet and he found a creative and classy way to tell the fans directly that he’ll be back for another season. Immediately, Los Angeles was buzzing…14 hours later, he’s still a trending topic on Twitter and our Facebook post got 4,500 likes, more than anything else all season long. What more can really be said about Vin?

Shortly after that first conversation with Vin, we had another special moment. A woman in our department came up with the idea of having Fernando Valenzuela call Team Mexico before the international championship game at the Little League World Series and it was a memorable moment for both them and him.

Then, of course, there was the game. Trailing 1-0 up until Vin made his announcement, the team turned it on and not only broke out for a big victory, but Matt Kemp reached 30/30 faster than any other player in franchise history — which means faster than Raul Mondesi, the only other guy that’s ever done it as a Dodger. The fans went crazy and it was obviously a moment that Matt — or the fans who were here — will never forget.

The night ended with Friday Night Fireworks on the field (set to the Beatles music in honor of tomorrow’s 45th anniversary of their show at Dodger Stadium). And then early this morning, we invited our season ticket holders who have had seats here for three decades or more to take part in a photo shoot for the cover of the September Dodgers Magazine. It’ll be a keepsake and hopefully a morning that they’ll remember for years to come, too.

Making it all even better, yesterday happened to be the day that the winning bidder for ThinkCure spent the day trailing me in my job, so a wonderfully sweet young Dodger fan got to experience it all first-hand and meet everyone from Vin Scully on the day he made the announcement, to Clayton Kershaw, Matt Kemp and so many others.

So sure, things aren’t quite where we all want them to be on and off the field. We’d all prefer that we be right in the thick of a pennant race right now. But we’ve got the game’s broadcaster, best young pitcher, best young position player and the best fans around. I’ll take that any day.

53 Comments

Things would be fine if Frankrupt were gone! What the Dodgers need is a man of class like Vin Scully to own this franchise and a man or women that can actually afford to own a team and run it properly, not a self serving low life scum bag like McCourt.

Although I completely understand where you’re coming from (I am completely disgusted with the McCourts), the way my son and I see it….if we don’t go to the games, we aren’t supporting the players and the team. They still show up every day, do their best and do it for the fans. That’s what’s important to us and what should be important to all Dodger fans.

Someone in the Dodger organization left a voicemail for my firm about the photo shoot. I really wanted to attend, but I figured that it would be best NOT to show up in a “Mark Cuban Save The Dodgers” shirt, even though I loath the McCourts. I love our team…. but won’t show support for a scumbag owner that doesn’t care about them.

Sorry but I was so carried away by this 5 game winning streak and the unfamiliar success of the offense, that I didn’t read Josh’s column for this thread, before I posted my comment. So let me just say, see how many good things that are taken place lately?
Without or with McCourt, we could always find something to cheer about. It doesn’t look like there will be 100 loses unless the Dodgers don’t win again this year, since we only need one more win to prevent that.
GO DODGERS!!!!!!

Love the dodgers! One of the greatest franchise in baseball history. The dodgers gods won’t let frank or jamie mccourt do anything to us that would ruin us. Thank you vin scully for one more year, your the best ever, and there’s a million people that would say the same about you vin scully.awesome job !I hope to meet you someday. Matt Kemp keep up the good work you are a superstar, an L.A. needs a superstar like you! I will b at the game tomorrow with my kids, go get a win and viva la dodgers!

I would like to say that Ned is an asshole!!! What in the hell is he doing throwing Andre under the bus? Did he not learn his lesson last season with Matt. APPARENTLY NOT!!! Andre has done nothing but good things for this organization. He works his ass off every season (not to mention off-season) so why would he just throw all that hard work away? Manny is the only one who got away with crap like that, and you all loved him. I am just floored that Ned did it again. Well if Andre wanted to stay a Dodger, Ned just convinced him he didn’t. If he was thinking it (as some of you claim to be truth), then Ned just convinced me Andre now wants out. Ned is a pathetic excuse forbad human being and a useless, despicable GM.

Ned is messing with the wrong group of fans!! Andre may be struggling as a ballplayer, but it’s Andre’s compassion for the game, his integrity as a person, and his intensity as a ballplayer that his fans love about him. Ned has questioned all of that, and he expects to not be held accountable. Absolutely shameful!!!! You didn’t get away with how you treated Matt, and you aren’t going to get away with how you treated Andre either. This Ethieraholic is still pissed!!!

Yes Josh, Vin Scully is a big reason why we love the Dodgers! The game on Friday was incredible and the one on Saturday turned out to be another great win!
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Is your arm hurting this morning Josh from all that batting practice? 🙂
Emmahttp://crzblue.mlblogs.com

I’ve got to say I just don’t get Colletti. I’m not as down on him as others on here, but he sure as hell will not get a job as a diplomat when his baseball days are done. Why would you let things into the media, such as we’ve seen last year and this, about your key players. Is Kershaw next?

Should this be a ploy by Ned to get Andre to play better, I would have to say he missed the mark tremendously. This guy should just go away and take his boss with him. I agree with you, VL – there is a VERY special place in Hell for both these . . . I was going to say people, but that wouldn’t be accurate.
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This is just one more thing for Andre to overcome – and it’ll probably be in another uniform. But he will overcome it, I am certain of that.

My L.A. Times was late this morning so I did not see Simer’s article until reading posts here and on OTD. I was a bit surprised but then I read the article and I am still puzzled. I usually read Simers with an open mind, knowing full well his goal is to get a rise out of his subjects. I know he is not an investigative reporter and he looks for the angle others will not. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks about him and the more his subject reacts to him, the harder Simers is on that subject. So this story about Ethier playing hurt and the Dodgers knowing all of this baffles me because while some have suspected something is wrong with Andre, nothing has been said until now. Andre suggests this problem is not new and the Dodgers know all about it. He now tells us about treatments and yet did anyone every say anything until now about this? We also all know the Dodgers (and other teams) routinely put players on the DL. Are the Dodgers treating Andre differently? I have no doubt there is a lot more to this story than what we know. I am also not too surprised Andre never made an issue out of this. It is just not his style but you would expect others in the media to pick up on this. I agree that Ned coudl have been a lot more careful about his comments. Andre, I wish you well. Even those who have been critical of Andre’s performance this season should know he gives it his best just as I believe most players do.

If not for Simers, the story about Andre’s situation would never be out. I’m glad for the possible explanation. I too have been mystified about Andre’s season and even had the urge lately to wonder what happens if Loney actually passes Andre with his BA and possibly even HR’s. One wouldn’t expect a team’s front office to malign one of its key players, but then again this is the Dodgers 2011 and Ned in the forefront. One could almost forgive a player getting fed up with Frank and Ned and just playing out the season, but Andre has always shown more character than that. If I have to give somebody the benefit of the doubt, I will go with Andre.
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I wouldn’t blame the franchise if they had a plan and decided that Andre was not in their future. If there was a plan, you would think they would have made some decent trade before the July deadline and at least wound up with a couple of decent prospects for Andre. As has been more typical with Ned, we’ll undoubtedly lose Andre at some point soon and have nothing or next to nothing to show for it. Way to go, front office – stick another one up the fans’ collective ass.
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Fire Ned Colletti’s ASS!

McCourt and Colletti can’t disappear soon enough for me. McCourt is a lying, scheming, unethical, greedy waste pile and Colletti, an incompetent bully. Memo to Bud Selig. If blowing out McCourt, and by osmosis, his GM stooge, isn’t in the “best interests of baseball” in general, and the Los Angles Dodgers in particular, then what the hell does the clause exist for? This farce has gone on far too long. DO SOMETHING, already……..

This is the front office who hired Vladimr Shpunt to heal Jayson Werth’s wrist with transcontinental ESP. Is anyone surprised that they’d just hush one of the Dodgers’ biggest stars when he comes up with a injury in a season where they need every horse they can to get people to come to the ballpark?

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I’ll just say this: I’m not in this clubhouse. I don’t know any of the players on a personal level, haven’t even met any of them at an autograph signing, let alone know anything that goes on in the clubhouse behind closed doors. I don’t know what’s going on. Neither does Simers.

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But with the track record of this team injury-wise since Stan Johnson left as Dodgers trainer, combined with the ineptness of the upper echelons of this franchise in terms of understanding the “baseball operations” of the franchise speak 3 trillion times louder than any PR and Marketing posturing to the fans that, in the past, were more than happy to spend money on the Dodgers win-or-lose, I would not be surprised if they’re punishing Andre for statements he made at the beginning of the season, the “I don’t know where I’m going to be” interview (that was probably a quotation butchered to crap, just like EVERY QUOTATION butchered to crap by a media that wants to create drama, long before now, long before 45 years ago when an overzealous reporter turned John Lennon’s concern over fans taking the band too seriously into a claim that he believed the band “bigger than Jesus”).

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And if he’s really hurt, it’s baffling why a franchise that has no problem with DLing players whose numbers are falling off would do this with one of their franchise stars. If Colletti wanted a nice, cushy Chicagoland safety net once Frank decides he needs another head to roll to appease the fans, then this is absolute wrong way of going about it. Keep the laundry in the laundry room. Otherwise, you have failed, especially when you’re the one airing the laundry for all to see. This is stuff we should be reading in a book in 20-30 years (like Garvey vs. Sutton), not now. ESPECIALLY not now.

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T.J.’s an entertaining read, but he’s also a member of the Pot-Stirring HOF. I’m sure Ethier didn’t say what was written the way that it was written, and Simers laid an unfortunately placed pocket of flatulence in the middle of a 6 game winning streak.

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Kinda like when the beach ball falls onto the field when the Giants have runners on 2nd and 3rd with 1 out in the 6th, except unlike the distracted fan, T.J. knows exactly what he’s doing, the goal not to sabotage Ethier or the Dodgers (though maybe having a little fun with ’em), but to get as many readers as possible, as many people talking about his article as possible. It worked.

Hi everybody
I completely missed yesterday’s game, first I lost MLB.TV and my phone service went out and then I lost the PC. Without TWC up I was unable to bring my computer back online, I did catch the last inning on MLB network. I was down for some 20 hours.
Strange it happened about 2 hours after Irene past but it was still a bit windy and might’ve knock out an already loose cable in the area where others experience the same problem. TWC credited me $10.68 for the day.
Lets hope our ACE can give us another win and his 17th.

Thank you Sparkleplenty.
Wasn’t that a dandy tonight pitched by our ACE Clayton. He actually finished stronger than he started tonight. How about that HR by Loney and Ethier looked more like himself tonight.
We won’t lose 100 games this year and August was a winning month. This might be a turning point for the Dodgers. If not this year than next year.

I am testing a theory here. It seems like if I include the url for my blog, the comment would go to Spam. I know that was the case posting to the OTD. But I see I posted something on 8/28 with my blog’s link and it was OK so who knows…..

“In a season of bad, it’s the worst…….It’s the smallest crowd I’ve seen in my 23 years of following the Dodgers…..

“The official attendance is 27,767, the second-lowest of the season, but that accounts for the number of tickets sold, not the number of actual people in seats.

“This is surely the worst. This is surely not even close. Eleven sections are completely vacant. Most of the pavilion sections are in single digits. The left-field corner section, previously known as Mannywood, is Deadwood, inhabited by precisely 20 people.

“There are maybe 8,000 folks here, and if you want an idea about the no-shows, listen to George Aldana, an insurance guy who is sitting with co-workers among the tumbleweeds of Deadwood.

“Aldana had an extra ticket, so he phoned his sister, Lisa, a longtime Dodgers fan.

“I offered her the ticket and she said, ‘No, I’m not giving any money to Frank McCourt,’ ” he says.

“Saldana replied that he was giving her the ticket for free.

“She said, ‘Yeah, but then once I get there, what if I buy a beer? That’s still money in McCourt’s pocket. No way.’ ”

“There has surely been no greater example of fans giving up something they love to spite an owner they despise.”

Hi Everybody on ITD.
Well I don’t know who else but I for one feel kind of excited over the way this grand old team of ours is performing lately. I’m trying not to let my thoughts get my hopes up too high and set myself up for a big let down.
That said, the month of August was very exciting to me. Another month like that could get us close to the .500 mark at least.
Catching the Giants is really out of our control and I’d prefer not to get into that.
Just take it one day at a time.

Eric, when I first read the article, here was my favorite line:
“There has surely been no greater example of fans giving up something they love to spite an owner they despise.”
Looks like Frankie got an offer for $1.2 billion to sell. Frank, don’t be like the obnoxious house guest from SNL’s, “The Thing Who Wouldn’t Leave.”

GUBOT,
thanks! I only put one URl and it goes to awaiting moderation so I stopped putting them. Mark from MLB had told us to include our MLB url. Is OK with me as I have not had time to update my blog.
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I was in the club level when I saw Plaschke and I was telling myself “tomorrow there will be a Dodger related post from Plaschke” and sure enough. In the old days if there were not enough fans in the RF pav, they would just close it but now since it is an All you can eat, they decide to open it no matter how many fans. Wonder if it is worth it. I would think closing it and giving a voucher to the LF pav would work better.
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OBF,
August was an exciting month. Let’s hope the wins continue. I look forward to seeing every KErshaw game, seeing Matt Kemp, seeing Javy Guerra and other rookies perform well.
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Looking forward to the last homestand. I am happy that my business trip in Sept was postponed to October so that I won’t miss any home games. Also looking into going to SD with some friends for our last road trip.

I am also a Dodgers lover. I was born a dodgers fan. My family has been a Dodger fans for 3 generations. We go for the Dodgers if they are doing bad or good. It is a good time to be a Dodger fan because they are doing the best right now.

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